The Stars Fell Silent: The 75th Games
by katsparkle13
Summary: What if Snow had picked another card for the Quell? This year's card reads that only tribute from each district will be reaped. But every tribute must bring his or her family with them. Katniss never returns to the arena. This year, she goes as a mentor. This year's Games ensure suspense as each family must fight for the survival of all its members.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N And welcome to my second ever SYOT! Now, read carefully. These things do take a lot of work and a lot of time. I can not ensure that updates will occur as regularly or as speedily as my last SYOT, as I have been noticing my writing has taken a lot more time than it used to. But I assure you, I will try my absolute best.**

**If you are reading this and have not read my previous SYOT, this chapter may be a little difficult to understand. I recommend starting with my first. However, if you do not have time to do this, just enjoy what you can understand.**

**Now, onto the fun stuff.**

**Prologue**

It was the year of the seventy fifth annual Games.

Around the nation, people were in preparation for this year's Quell. Those in the Capital bustled around deciding on new outfits to wear to the extravagant parties that were known to occur this time of year. They whispered amongst themselves, each trying to determine what this year's could be. After last year's eventful Games, it would have to be a good one. Those in the districts were spending more and more time lying awake at night. Wondering who it would be. A neighbor? Friend? Daughter or son? If this was anything like the last Quell, when _twice _as many children lost their lives, they had just reason to be afraid.

Casper Monroe was one of them.

A man of all sixty eight of his years, the Games still came back to haunt him. No, they never did leave him. It was just as his mentor had warned. Although some nights he could sleep well, in the comfort of his warm bed in his large house next to his wife, there were others this time of year when he tossed and turned for weeks on end.

Yes, he was a victor. And so he knew all the consequences of becoming one. His mentor had warned him that the eyes of both the government and the nation would be fixated on him for many years to come. He had been an underdog for sure, and so had caught the nation's attention. Throw in his tragic love story, and people couldn't get enough of him. It was a shock at first, but yet, he got used to that. He knew long beforehand that even if he did somehow survive the Games, dark thoughts at night would plague his every night. Faces would never leave his head, not after fifty years.

He'd been warned of this. None of it bothered him much anymore. This was his life. At least he had one at all.

There was but one thing that still frightened him.

In the fifty years since he had won the first Quarter Quell, it was as though time had not passed.

The Games were exactly the same. Year after year. Oh, yes. There were different tributes in slightly different arenas. But there were always Careers, who almost always won. The same style of interviews and even the same chariot costumes repeated themselves. The children were just as scared, even though the idea of the Games was not new to them or anyone in their immediate family by now.

Certainly they were a familiar presence in Casper's own family.

It seemed like an ordinary evening in the Monroe house. Elorica was fixing dinner, her chicken stew. Sometimes the two sat and thought about the times before they could ever eat chicken or really any meat at all besides tough, cheap beef. (Or dog, possibly.) Now, though, it was a staple. The children and grandchildren were all here. They came here every year by some unspoken rule and all watched the introduction to the year's Games. The unspoken binding was drawn even closer because of this year's Quell.

"Is suspect it'll be something to do with age. You know, tributes of any age can be reaped." Kaja, easily the most outspoken of any of his children, said to all of them. She lived up to her namesake. As a child, she had said whatever had come to her mind. Her siblings joked that this was the reason she'd never married. She was thirty nine now.

"Never mind that," Aya answered quickly. She swooped down to steer her youngest, India, away from the conversation. Aya was the eldest of the Monroe children and the age gap between her and her siblings was significant, as Elorica and Casper had decided on waiting for things to settle after her birth. Originally, they'd thought of her name as "Star." But when she was born, both looked at each other and decided on naming her Aya instantly, after Casper's fiercely loyal and brave ally during his Games.

Every single child in the Monroe family, grandsons and daughters as well, had been named after a tribute in Casper's Games.

Seventeen year old India rolled her eyes at her mother. "Mom, I'm seventeen. It's not like I've never been to a reaping before."

Markus, Casper's twelve year old grandson and his son Gav's child, coughed quietly. He shuffled his feet as he set the table. Markus, like Casper's own son Gav, was a well-mannered sort of boy, but he had the sort of mischievous grin that sent pangs of grief into Casper upon remembering his son's namesake's face. But mostly he felt happy. Little Gav had lived on, in a way.

All-in-all, Elorica and Casper had a total of four children. Aya was their eldest and took it as her responsibility to raise the younger children when Elorica and Casper were called to the Capital for interviews. Aya and her husband lived in a nice apartment, far bigger than most in Eight because of her father's status. They had three children: Twenty-two year old Raen, nineteen year old Oak and seventeen year old India. Then there was Kaja, who had decided not to marry, but stayed right with Casper and Elorica to look after the house when they were gone. There were too many rooms for just the two of them, anyway. After Kaja came Gav, who had three children. Markus was his youngest. His siblings were fifteen year old Jezebelle and eighteen year old Cadence. Casper's youngest child was Violet. Violet was fiercely intelligent and utterly fearless. Her thirteen year old daughter, Katerina, took after her.

Although Casper would never admit it, Katerina was (sometimes) his favorite grandchild. She had dark hair just like her namesake and that same gaze.

Right now, she stood staring the television screen intently. "I think maybe this year they'll do something like reaping adults."

Jezebelle leaned back in the couch in thought. "Or maybe they will let multiple tributes win." She said thoughtfully, almost dreamily.

"Hah!" Katerina laughed harshly. "In your dreams, Jezi! You're always way too optimistic about everything. It'll be something horrible, just watch. It always is." Her voice dropped to a decidedly cynical tone.

"Shut up, " Jezebelle muttered.

"All right, you two." Violet set dishes on the table and beckoned for them to come away from the screen. "We'll find out what the Quell is sooner or later. There's no use speculating." She sighed. "I'm sure it will take us all by surprise, anyway. I remember the last Quell announcement vividly."

"We all do," Aya said quietly.

The sound of talking melted into the sound of clinking forks and knives. Their kitchen was normally airy, but when the entire family was over, it did begin to feel crowded. But it was a good, happy kind of crowded. Even on a day like today. They were still together. No matter what the Quell would end up to be, the world would keep on turning. And Casper began to think that perhaps the reason they all gathered today on the day of the big announcement was so that all could draw strength from the crowd of family around them. It was a nice thought.

"President Snow will probably want you back in the Capital," Kaja said. "It'll likely be an interview about what you think about this year's Quell or something. I imagine you'll come right back, though. Remember Dad? You're mentoring this year, too."

"Ah," Casper said quietly. He twirled a noodle on his fork. At the last Quell, Woof had been assigned to mentor. Woof was ten years younger than Casper, but by now both had ample experience mentoring. And Casper knew for a fact that the last Quell had taken a heavy toll on Woof. Forced to watch twice as many children die. It couldn't have been easy.

Suddenly, the familiar notes rose up from the screen next door. The anthem was starting to play.

"It's starting!" Oak shouted. He practically kept out of his seat, a line of nerves etched onto his face. It figured. He hadn't been able to sit still the entire meal. Yes, he was relieved that he was now nineteen and too old for the Games. But his younger sister India was still eligible. And being in the family of a victor meant the chances of being reaped were increased tenfold.

Besides, no one knew just who the Quell might affect.

Forks were left still clattering from where the family had thrown them down. Bowls were half full of soup that would now surely grow cold.

The entire enormous family all gathered in front of the screen. And Casper drew his strength from all of them together. Especially Elorica, whose age-worn hand was wrapped in his. Here was a crowd of his children and grandchildren, all named after the tributes of his Games, down to his children's middle names.

Violet had the middle name "Keira." It would be wrong to separate these two names.

Elorica squeezed his hand tightly. "Whatever it is, Casper, we'll get through it. We got through the worst of it when we were still kids. You remember what I always tell you, don't you? You won the Hunger Games. To say the odds were against you is a terrific understatement. If you survived that, you can survive anything."

"You're always right, Ellie."

On the screen, President Snow took to his podium. His face was lined with age. Sometimes Casper found it hard to believe that this man was even older than him. But despite his age, the man gave off a distinct aura of power. He was dressed in a deep red, nearly maroon suit with a rose pinned to his jacket. He set his hands on the podium and surveyed the crowd.

But perhaps he was older in ways other than physique. Last year's Games must have taken a toll on him. As well as his power.

"Welcome," He said in a booming voice. "Welcome to the start of this year's Games. It will be even more exciting than most, as this is the year of the third Quarter Quell."

A cheer rose up from the brightly-clad crowd.

The Monroe family moved closer together.

Snow cleared his throat. "The past Quell's have been riveting to behold. The first Quarter Quell, held fifty years ago, was designed to remind the districts that it was their responsibility the War began and the Games began in the first place. So they would be responsible for which children perished. Every child was voted into the Games."

Some in the family began whispering. The children exchanged looks, well aware of the story their names held.

"The second Quarter Quell was held twenty five years ago. To remind the districts of the amount of lives they lost because of their foolish actions, twice as many children were reaped and so twice as many perished." He straightened himself and looked out into the crowd of Capital citizens. His eye met the camera and he gazed at his fiercely. Casper noted that the man's eyes were the same ice blue they were fifty years ago when he had first been called to meet the man behind the Games.

"Now, we will have the announcement of the third Quarter Quell."

A young girl dressed in a floaty pink dress breezed onto the stage. A sweet-looking little thing. Casper almost felt pity at the world this little girl was growing up in. An adorable dimpled smile graced the girl's cheeks. This was a show to her. A game all on its own. She held a mahogany box that was filled with notecards, all yellowing from age. Each one held an idea for the year's Quell. It would be picked at random. Snow extended his hand into the box.

Slowly, he withdrew one of the yellowing cards, curled slightly at the edges. He stared at the card for a moment, mentally assessing the words on it. The faintest sliver of a smile appeared on his lips. He walked smoothly back to his place at the podium. Back to his position of power, far above the crowd that watched him with widened eyes, fixated on his every move.

The entire Monroe house seemed to be holding its breath. Not a sound could be heard.

Snow began to speak with a clear and powerful voice. "To remind the districts that the War tore apart their connection with the Capital, this year's Quarter Quell will sever connections of their own. For the seventy fifth annual Hunger Games, only one tribute will be reaped from each district."

Everyone in the room gasped.

"But this tribute must take his or her entire family along with them. Multiple people can win, provided they are from the same family."

The screen went black.

**A/N** **The tribute form is below. This is not a first-come first-serve basis. Forms must be detailed with enough mentioned about the tribute's family as well. Thank you for submitting and I wish you luck! I can't wait to read what you've come up with.**

**Name:**

**Gender:**

**Age:**

**District (top three choices):**

**Appearance:**

**Personality:**

**Family Members ( a detailed description of each):**

**Relationship to family:**

**Friends:**

**Status:**

**Strengths:**

**Weaknesses:**

**Intelligence from 1 to 10:**

**Weapon of choice:**

**Family members' weapon skills (if possible):**

**Reaped/Volunteered (there will likely be no volunteering outside, maybe, Districts Two and One.):**

**Reaction/Why:**

**Goodbyes:**

**Reaping Outfit:**

**Interview Outfit (optional):**

**Chariot Parade costume ideas:**

**Strategy:**

**Alliances or none:**

**Blurb describing:**

**A. A typical day**

**B. Your tribute's death (no, this does not mean he or she will die)**

**Token:**

**Extra:**


	2. District One: For Better Or Worse

**A/N Welcome to the first Reaping chapter! You know, I could really use a beta-reader. Hint hint. Celeste and Apollo Lockheart were submitted by sc148. Prepare to have your mind blown. (If I can write this right.)**

**Family Number 1:**

**Apollo Lockheart (age 16)**

**Celeste Lockheart (age 16)**

**Velvet Lockheart (age 64)**

Apollo strolled through the District Square, his hands shoved in his pockets.

The day was a pleasant one. The sky was a clear, bright May blue. Apollo couldn't help whistling to himself. Okay, today was supposed to be a somber day. But man, he wasn't too good at being somber. What was the point?

Besides, in District One, today was a day worth celebrating. Everyone knew that the Quell gave a chance for entire families to bring honor to their district, not just one tribute. Okay, so there were no volunteers. The president had only recently let this new installment out. But that was only to ensure variety of ages in the tributes and their families, as well as families of different types. Some people in the outer districts were probably worried about this, Apollo reasoned. It would be pretty damn frightening to be thrown into the arena with no training at all.

As for himself, he would go as far to say that he was indifferent towards the whole thing.

Yes, he had been training at the local underground center in typical Career fashion. He wouldn't label himself a typical Career, though. Bloodlust wasn't his thing. It was exhilarating to slice open a dummy or dodge an opponent's attack and he for sure wasn't about to deny that.

But he was only going to the center for one thing and that was the steady food source he and his sister were provided with there. Plus, the beds in the center were slightly more comfortable than the ones in the orphanage.

He and his twin sister Celeste had been bored with the daily routine in the dull orphanage. They had been rowdy twelve year olds, ready for something new besides thin porridge and lice on the sheets. And so the decision to go off and train was reached by acquiescence.

Now the normally quiet Square was being prepared for the day. Cameras were being set up everywhere and Apollo even spotted a few people being interviewed. District One was one of the Capital's favorites and the Reapings tended to be shown a little longer on screen than with the other, dirtier, poorer ones.

His sister nudged his arm with her pointy elbow. "Maybe you should go see about an interview. How amazing would that be? Imagine people all over the country getting to see you."

Apollo chewed his lip in thought. There was a possibility. He was pretty good looking, after all. He knew that. It wasn't like he went around flaunting it. He just _knew _it. His hair was wavy and golden and his skin was the exact bronze color that girls couldn't help but stare at. He had blue-green eyes that could melt any girl. Apollo was confident in that fact. Not to mention his physique, now toned from years of physical training. Apollo had never known either of his parents. But it was his inference that they had been a handsome couple, if nothing else.

His twin sister, on the other hand, was another matter entirely. Apollo pitied those boys whose eyes popped when he announced he had a twin sister. Surely, she must be quite the looker then? Oh, what a misconception it was that twins, even fraternal, can look alike!

Celeste did share several features with him, of course. She, too, was blonde. Only her hair was a dull, darkened blonde that hung limply across her back, ending in frayed and uneven tips as she never seemed to cut it well. She was bony. Where other girls had curves and places where a guy's eyes could linger for a while, Celeste was all angles and points. There was nothing there to look at in the first place. Other girls grew tall and developed hips and other seemingly random occurrences of curves. Celeste certainly did grow tall. She was 5'9 or so at least. But her figure stayed almost exactly the same. She was an odd mash-up of features from all age groups and strangers could never seem to guess her age.

Poor girl.

Apollo tossed his man of hair back carelessly. "Ah, screw those cameras. If I get Reaped, I'm going to let my weapons skills speak for themselves."

"Oh man, Apollo. There is such a thing as being too confident, you know." Celeste's voice was light, as it always was when she teased her brother. She did do quite often. Apollo usually didn't retort back. Girls were sensitive about those sort of things.

Besides, being a girl, she had probably taken all that had happened to them a lot harder. Well, this Apollo knew. Sometimes he heard her crying into her pillow at night. Apollo hadn't engaged in much pillow crying. What happened happened. There were kids he knew with worse stories than theirs. Yes, they had never known their parents. But after some of the stories Apollo had encountered at the orphanage, it almost seemed better that way. He'd never been beaten, save for those spankings with a wooden spoon he'd gotten at the home. He'd never seen his father hit his mother or been given a cigarette burn or seen his sister getting (shudder) touched by his father. It did happen. Just not to them.

"Damn, am I ever glad to get out of that dark and dingy training center." Celeste stretched her arms and let the sun hit her face. She had never been happy cooped up inside the center. That was where the two of them differed.

"Don't let anyone hear you talking like that." Mason's voice came to them from behind. He flashed a grin at the twins. Mason was Apollo and Celeste's age and had been a close friend of theirs since they had begun training. He was, like Apollo and Celeste, decidedly un-Career. That is, if one was looking at the typical Career stereotypes. Mason was a level-headed type of guy; very smooth and easygoing. He was lay and loved to pull jokes and, all in all, wasn't very serious. Which was why he and Apollo got along just fine.

Mason put his arm around Celeste's bony shoulders. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "We're supposed to be going on about how lucky we are to have this so-called secret training center that I'm sure even the most ignorant hicks in Twelve know about." He laughed.

Apollo sat down on one of the stone benches that had obviously been placed there as part of a beautifying effort for the cameras. Normally, despite its reputation as being the most pristine district, District One wasn't really much to look at. There were remnants of elegance, sure. The Justice Building was white marble and enormous and had obviously been stunning once. Once. The fountain in front of it, in the dead center of the Square, was a large and opulent thing made from stone. No water came out of it now though, just on days when the camera crews came. Its stone was cracked and crumbling.

And the district was not without its seedier areas too. Any seasoned citizen knew that these parts could be just as bad as any in Six.

Apollo had no doubt that he and Celeste had come from an area such as workers, few in amount, at the orphanage had told him that he and Celeste had been taken there by an older woman, with slightly gray hair and an apron still covered in blood from their birth. Though they weren't sure if this was the woman who actually birthed them. It probably wasn't. The woman had been sobbing, her face wracked with grief and her eyes swimming with tears. Before the women from their orphanage could ask her anything, she handed them a box with two of the tiniest babies the women had ever seen.

Twins. Twins were a rarity, even in districts with slightly less abysmal medical care. But miraculously, both were alive and crying.

The woman only said one thing. That the children's names were Celeste and Apollo. And that her name was Velvet.

Then she took off.

"So what do you two think of this Quell, eh?" Mason's voice, thankfully, cut into Apollo's sort of depressing reverie.

Apollo shrugged his shoulders. "It's an interesting one, I guess. It'll probably make for some pretty good entertainment. It's gonna be something else to see adults in that arena. Maybe our trainers will go. Or really seasoned trainees of the past, along with their kids." He studied his fingernails. "Won't affect us, though. By us, I mean me and Celeste."

"Celeste and _I," _Mason corrected slyly. He glanced at Celeste, hoping to see her crack a smile. She didn't. Ah, Celeste. She had always been a oblivious girl to the point where Apollo wanted to jump in front of her spacey eyes and eve his hands frantically.

"You're only saying that because we don't know our family." Celeste said quietly. She and that intense look in her eyes. Even though she lacked in physical strength, her mental intensity during training was hard to beat. Apollo sometimes wished he could be as intense as she was. But then he thought that someone had to be there to counteract all of his sister's seriousness. That was him.

"What do you mean?" He asked slowly. Okay, he had always been a little slower on the uptake than most people. Usually, that ended up with comical results, which made it okay. But this conversation was quickly turning anything but comical.

Celeste sighed. "Just because we've never met our family, however screwed up they may be, it doesn't mean we don't have one. They're out there somewhere. Somewhere in the district is someone with our blood, right? You remember that blood testing thing everyone had to go to a few weeks ago, don't you?"

And he did. about three weeks ago, every single person in the district had to go to the Justice Building in an enormous room to get blood tested and scanned. Throughout the day more and more people went inside until the whole district was finished. This was to ensure no one escaped. Even those who tried to dodge the testing were found somehow. The Peacekeepers had their ways. Apollo was no coward. If he was picked, then that was that. He and Celeste would bring honor to their district just like any other Careers would.

But oh, the rest of the family complicated that.

Who knew? Maybe they would have to bring along some drunken father or catatonic mother they'd never seen before. He rolled his eyes. Well, thank goodness they wouldn't get picked. That just wouldn't happen. The odds were phenomenal at best.

Apollo put his hands behind his head and rested against the back of the bench, letting the sun warm his face. It really was nice outside. And it felt great to be in the sun finally and not sweating in the dank training space. Even though he would have to return tomorrow. Quell or no quell, Careers got exactly one day of rest and that was Reaping Day.

"Don't look too comfortable," Mason warned. "Reaping starts soon, you know."

Celeste fingered her skirt. Apollo wasn't sure how she'd managed to find the dark velvety looking thing, or the cream colored blouse she wore with it. The only clothes they'd been wearing for years were the training outfits, which consisted of tight black t-shirts and gray sweatpants.

Mason himself was looking pretty comfortable. But then, he always did. Mason was the kind of guy who could brush off any situation as no big deal at all. Even when he was training, though he rarely showed off for others, his swordsmanship looked more like a calm and controlled dance than the wild, hacking movements the other guys made. Apollo agreed that this was the way to go. As far as his own machetes went, he aspired to create such fluid movements as Mason used.

"I think it's time for some real victors this year, don't you?" Apollo asked. "Honestly, I think it's pretty generous of Snow to let multiple people win for two years in a row."

Celeste shrugged. "I don't know. Something smelled fishy with last year's Games. I didn't get what happened at all and I'm still trying to process it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitter about two scrappy kids from Twelve winning. The boy was pretty strong and there's no denying that the girl was an excellent marksman. But they shouldn't have won. They just got lucky. Especially with that random rule change that went back and forth, huh? If you ask me, Cato and Clove should have taken it."

Mason leaned over in mild interest. "Rooting for the rival district, are we?"

She punched him lightly in the arm. "Shut up. I always thought our girl was never going to win. That boy was an idiot. The Games just didn't seem fair."

Apollo checked his watch. "Well, maybe this year will be better. We'll have some adults go in. Let's head over to the Square. We're gonna be late." He got up from the bench, slightly apprehensive to go to the Reaping. He did like to train. But what he didn't like was watching the Games. They were meant to be an entertaining contest. Gory, sometimes, yeah. He could take that. What he couldn't take was little kids being ripped from their parent's arms and thrown into a fight against kids like him.

There was no way he could ever kill a little kid.

But a monstrous brute from Two who could actually put up a fight? Or a clever tribute from Four who happened to be excellent at wielding a net? Yeah, he'd like that. Celeste wouldn't, though. When he was younger, he had teased her about her passive nature, so odd in their home district. But now he didn't anymore. Actually, he kind of respected it. That's what happens when one gets older and begins to tune out the mindless brainwashing the trainers would shout out. If she didn't like to fight, that was cool by him.

No doubt about it, she was the brains of the pair. Apollo was no braggart. He would admit that his intelligence was lacking. But hey, he was a good guy. Most of the time.

"I can say hi to Chardonnay, if you want me to." Celeste offered as the three of them, Mason included, walked over to the tables to get their fingers pricked. She walked without her usual bounce in her step. The Quell had freaked Celeste out from the beginning. Apollo knew she was thinking about all those babies who now had a chance of entering the arena.

Apollo felt himself blushing at the mention of his crush's name. "O-Okay," He stammered. Damn it. He always lost his cool whenever the girl's name came up.

Mason laughed. "Jeez, man! You couldn't possibly get any more obvious, could you?"

Apollo laughed too, but found himself blushing even more. Oh, if only he could get Chardonnay to notice him. But she was one of the best of the best. She was nearly as intelligent as Celeste! Almost. And man, could she control a spear. Although he would never hope for her to get Reaped, she would make one formidable competitor. He meditated on this as the line to get fingers pricked inched along. The Reaping would function like any other, except that the child's family, normally brought into the Justice Building to exchange goodbyes, would actually meet up with the Reaped child to strategize and figure out how to survive the days to come.

There would be no volunteering.

But Apollo wasn't worried. He never was. Mason was never worried, either.

He sauntered over to the table and winked at one of the young women with the needles. He stuck out his finger and proceeded to give the girl such a funny, rather seductive look that sent Apollo into a fit of laughter. Except he couldn't really laugh out loud for fear of looking insane. So he just stood there getting redder and redder in the face and clutching his hand over his mouth like an idiot. Damn Mason.

Because of that little show, when Celeste walked off to the sixteen year olds' section, she was smiling.

Apollo and Mason made their way to the guys of their age, all the while making a joke of comparing the hotness of their trainers. Even on a Quell, they refused to take the Reaping seriously. There was no fun in that. And they were, admittedly, a bit hedonistic. Well, more than a bit. Life was short, so why spend it miserable? Apollo knew he hadn't started life off to well and neither had Celeste. But they had food and clothes and soon would be out of the training center for good, maybe with a nice little flat with window boxes full of geraniums. Ah, that sounded nice. He would go on to become a trainer himself, though he'd open up his own little academy. Take a calmer approach and teach his pupils some of Celeste's logic. She could do that.

It sounded silly, but they actually had it planned out. Apollo might not admit it, but life without his sister was unimaginable.

"I assure you, my good man," Mason was saying. "I tell you, Vera is by far the hottest because of her walk. You know, that little hip swivel thingy she does."

Apollo shook his head vehemently. "Certainly not! Her face is as squashed up as a bull dog's. They're all just fantastically ugly, if you ask me."

Mason sighed. "It's a shame, really. They're some of the only girls we get to see throughout our fine adolescent years. Besides that horrendous bunch we're forced to train with." He sighed again. At that same time, a rather nosy girl from their training group overheard them and let out a little gasp, followed by a hair toss in their direction. The boys didn't stop laughing until Soleil Mink, their chirpy escort, bounded the steps to the stage.

"Welcome!" She wore her trademark eye-watering yellow. Apollo felt the urge to shield his eyes and Mason actually did. Of course. Soleil cleared her throat lightly and tapped the microphone. "This year is very special. It's the 75th annual Hunger Games and a Quarter Quell!"

The crowd cheered. Apollo felt his voice rise with the rest. Mason wasn't cheering too loudly though, if at all. Maybe he was just too casual for that. Or maybe it was something else. Apollo toyed with this thought as the video began to play, highlighting all the gory scenes from the Dark Days. Apollo always tried to avoid looking at the video. He hated it, honestly. What was done was done and that was that. In fact, that his whole mentality. But unfortunately, the Capital didn't share this.

It was what it was.

Soleil clapped her hands to signal the video's end. Up on the stage with her were the victors of past years. Apollo spotted the most recent victor, from three years ago; a young man named Jett who was probably twenty by now. They hadn't won last year, obviously. And the year before that went to District Two. So it was probably time to reclaim some glory and not let anyone forget how formidable they were. Since the tributes were Reaped, this did put a damper on things. But many of the kids had at least had basic training, so Apollo figured they could still have an advantage.

"And now I will select one name. That's right. Just one name. The bowl is twice as large this year to accommodate both boys and girls." She smiled over at the district's mayor, who in turn gestured to the gigantic glass bowl at the front of the stage filled with minuscule slips of paper. Soleil walked toward the bowl. "I assure you, it is an honor like no other to decide which tribute, and in turn, which family, gets to represent this lovely district."

Apollo kept his eyes focused on her hand, which was adorned by a large and sparkly ring that even he could see, way here in the back. He could also see horde of twelve years olds squirming in either excitement or discomfort at their first Reaping, which just so happened to be a Quell.

Soleil lowered her hand. Then, she suddenly plunged it into the bowl and latched onto a slip of paper in one lighting-fast move. She drew the slip up and carefully, slowly, unfolded it. For a second, she stood on the stage in stillness. Like she was just taking the time to read out the name to herself.

She smiled just slightly.

The crowd held its breath. Everyone drew air in at once in one collective motion

"Apollo Ward!"

_Ward. _The name given to so-called "wards of the state." Orphans. It was the name placed on the back of every nameless, or semi-nameless child who entered the orphanage. The name placed on children who really didn't exist at all. Those too young to remember who their family was.

Apollo wasn't listening until he heard the last part. That awful word. The last name he had always hated. And as soon as he heard it spoken, he knew it was him.

That was him.

But that wasn't all. Oh no, it got much worse. So, so much worse. Apollo felt his heart sink deep into his chest as he slowly took a step forward. He let out a gasp of air, realizing that he'd been holding it in the entire time. The ground beneath his feet felt rough and uneven. Everywhere around him, people stared. Their eyes bore into his. Some looked away. Others simply couldn't.

All gazes were the same. Hard and unfeeling.

Somewhere just behind him, a single scream pierced the air.

**The Goodbye Room**

Apollo kept close to his sister.

Both were sitting on an ornate, if slightly moth-eaten couch in a high and airy room. The room was at the top of the Justice Building and it had only one purpose. It seemed a depressing notion; that a room could only be created for such a sad propose. But the room did possess a little bit of cheer, if that cheer was oddly placed. The floorboards were clean and gleamed as the sunlight hit them. The furniture was done in cozy colors, like deep red and brown. In District One, the room didn't have as much of a sad purpose as in the other districts. At least, the mood in this room often wasn't as sad.

However, numbers simply do not lie. Most of the kids who walked into the room, however confident they were, did not return home.

Thus it came to be known under one name in every single district. And that was The Goodbye Room.

Celeste was biting her lip. "I can't do this." She said in a voice as thin as a reed. Tears welled up on her eyes. "Apollo, I'm no Career. Not like you. You've always been strong and good with weapons and all of that. You could survive. Oh, I'll only slow you down! I won't last a night. I'll be an embarrassment to the district and everyone knows it." She sighed deeply. "I'm just not like them."

Apollo patted her hand. He fleet like it had been a while since he actually tried to physically comfort his sister. That was the case with all siblings, he supposed. They got further apart as the years went by. Apollo knew that the recent years had been rough, as their personalities began to emerge as so decidedly different. But at the heart, he knew they were actually very much the same. "Don't cry, Celeste. C'mon, just for me, okay? Please don't cry."

Celeste stifled back a sob.

"You're right that you aren't like the rest of the people here, Celeste. But who gives a damn?" Apollo said loudly. "You're whip smart and I don't know where the hell you got that from, but that's not the point. You could beat any Career with your intelligence. So you aren't a Career. That doesn't mean you won't have a chance."

"Everyone has a chance." Celeste said these words with conviction, even though Apollo could tell that she didn't quite believe them yet. He didn't either. Sure, he had trained for a long time and he could wield a machete. He was a pretty good height, at about six foot one and he could take down most people in hand-to-hand. But he had never been at the top of his training groups. That spot was reserved for Mason, whose cunning and slyness could outdo even the largest of the guys. Apollo wasn't so sure he could take down the real competition in the Games.

He sighed. "And this year is different. We have to take into account the families. Plus the fact that there aren't any volunteers. Maybe they picked some scrawny twelve year old girl from Two who has a pregnant mother and a baby brother and no father or something. That could happen. Not every kid in Two is a killing machine, just like here. We have weak ones here, too. Not every kid trains for the Games. Some do, sure. But I think the kids who don't, at least the ones who've stopped training by the time they reach our age, outnumber the real Careers by a lot. When you think about it, the odds are pretty good."

Apollo felt satisfaction at seeing his sister's face visibly lift. A small smile played at the corners of her mouth. "Yeah," She said. "You're absolutely right. You know, you always go on about how I'm the smart one. But you're the one who's cool under pressure."

He shrugged. "No pressure, Celeste. We have this. We're coming home. So don't take a long time staring out your window to see the district when the train pulls out. There's no need for that. You'll see it again real soon. Why? Cause we're coming back."

She nodded and smiled wider. "Okay. I just have one question."

"What?"

Celeste suddenly seemed intensely focused on a stain on the couch. "Um, what about the family part of it? We don't know who our parents are. And don't you remember what we were talking about in the Square just a little while ago?" Her grayish eyes clouded at the mention of the conversation. And of their family. Whoever that could be.

Apollo felt stuck. He was at a loss for words. How could he possibly comfort his sister now? Damn, sometimes he really did feel like he was letting Celeste down. He was all the family she had and sometimes he just couldn't make up for a lost father and mother. Just the way Celeste could never fill the gap in his heart. He wanted parents. He wanted a father to scold him to train harder so he could prepare to bring his family honor. Then he wanted a mother to pat his shoulder and make sure he wore a jacket outside, even if it really wasn't that cold. He wanted proud grandparents who remarked on how big he had become and how handsome he was. And how honorable he was sure to become. Every now and then, people had complimented Apollo on this. But he wanted more.

His eventual answer was soft. "Maybe we'll finally get to meet them."

"They had everyone do that DNA testing. Everyone. If we have any living family in the district, they'll be here soon enough." Celeste's eyes widened at this realization. Whether it was a good or bad realization, neither of the two of them had any clue.

The Peacekeeper who was standing at the door suddenly cleared his throat loudly. Apollo thought the man must realize that the two of them weren't exactly classic District One tributes. For one, usually tributes had visitors pouring in. Their family would crowd and wish them only the best odds and so on and so forth. Apollo and Celeste had none of that, a fact made especially obvious by that year's Quell.

"You might be wondering why you don't have any visitors," He said in a slight monotone, answering Apollo's thoughts seemingly directly. "That's because district officials have located on living family member of yours and they figured you might want time to strategize." He looked slightly uncomfortable. He seemed to Apollo like the type of man who liked to follow protocol and this Quell was breaking protocol in many ways so far.

"Let her in!" The man called loudly.

The door opened slowly, creaking as it did. Two Peacekeepers, both large men dressed in the white uniform, stepped in. Their faces were grave. Their size made the woman between them appear even smaller. Apollo craned his neck to get closer look at her.

Was she it, then? The woman was smaller than Celeste, standing at only a little over five feet or so. She was old. Not so old that she had trouble walking or looked sickly, but her hair was gray and her body seemed frail, with veins showing and plain clothes covering her bony body. She wore a light purple skirt reaching nearly to her ankles and a simple white blouse, though a gold locket adorned her neck. Perhaps she was somewhat, or at least had once been, well-to-do. It was then Apollo noticed the woman's deciding feature. Though her form was small and fragile appearing, her bright gray eyes, the exact same color as Celeste's though even more vibrant, gazed around the room. They had something to them, a strange intensity, that Apollo wouldn't have expected to see from a woman like her.

So yes, she appeared weak. But Apollo knew that appearances were everything. And he could see that in the defiant way this woman stared at the Peacekeepers and the way she held her chin up. It was almost like she was trying to make the men uncomfortable. And for an old woman standing so small, she was doing a pretty good job of it.

The men slowly began to leave the room as the woman stepped forward. Her step seemed quick enough and so far unmarred by her age. She was healthy, a fact for which Apollo was grateful. It would have been very difficult for him fi she was not.

The woman immediately sat down on an ornate chair right next to the couch where the twins sat. She stared at them for a few moments, her gray eyes taking them in silently. Apollo hadn't met many people with truly gray eyes, and the ones that did have them were slightly dark. Only Celeste and this strange woman posed eyes that had an intense gray all to their own.

"So," The woman finally said simply. "You are both sixteen years old. Isn't that something?" She shook her head silently to herself, smiling softly. Even a little sadly. She looked…almost remorseful. Well, she should be, Apollo figured. If she was still living, why hadn't she taken them in? She certainly didn't look dirt poor or anything. They had spent their childhood being neglected in some orphanage while a healthy living relative completely ignored them.

Evidently, Celeste was thinking the same thing. "Who do you think you are?!" She spat out. Her eyes flashed raw anger that made Apollo's face grow hot with worry. His sister was never angry. Emotional, well, she sometimes was. But never, ever angry.

Quickly, the woman held up her hand. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have just…I wish it wasn't like this. I'm very sorry." The wrinkles in her face suddenly seemed to become much more pronounced. "I haven't even introduced myself. I'm your grandmother. My daughter, s-she was so young when she had you. Only nineteen. So scared. Sometimes women who give birth to multiples survive if they get medical care on time and are healthy. Ambrosia was always a frail little thing. It was a blood-clotting disorder. They only told me this after she died, of course." The woman stared into her lap.

The room had just become much more silent. It hung heavily and Apollo felt a weight on his heart. So his mother really was dead, then. All those nights when he and Celeste were little, fantasizing and making up stories about their mother who would someday return. All for nothing. She had probably been dead before they had even gotten to look at each other.

The woman looked very distressed. Tears welled up in her eyes. "I had lost everything," She whispered. "My daughter was all I had. No husband. I never married. He took off before Ambrosia was even born. He said…he said I could only think about another boy who wasn't him." She wrung her hands. "That's true. It still is. I thought about you two, Ambrosia and Adonis all day for years. It was so hard. I had to give you two to the orphanage. I just couldn't take care of you. I was gone for years. Catatonic, even. I was so, so lost. Please forgive me."

"I'm sorry," Celeste said plainly. "It looks like all of our lives haven't been easy. There's no point in getting angry about you." She looked over at Apollo. "I say we put this behind us. Our grandmother's better now then she was and what's done is done."

This sounded more like Celeste. But Apollo had only one thing on his mind. "Who's Adonis?"

At this, the old woman's eyes did let out a tear. It ran down her face, the etched wrinkles in it forming a path for the little drop. "My name is Velvet Lockheart. Adonis Lockheart was my brother. He died in the 25th Games. The first Quarter Quell in history. He was seventeen years old. After he died, everything fell apart. My father was awful. Always had been. He only got worse now that our family name was forever blotted. And my mother…she did nothing to stop him. She died a year later. Suicide. Everyone said it was a heart attack. I ran away when I was seventeen and I'm not at all proud of what I did in the years that followed. But eventually my father passed away and I inherited some of the money that we got as compensation. Many don't know, but families who lose children in the Games get a bit of money to sustain them. As if that could make up for it."

"Oh, man." Apollo's words came out in a whisper. They were all he could think to say.

"After I had Ambrosia, we lived together for some time until she met a boy. I don't even know who. I presume that whoever he was, he's dead now, since he isn't here in this room." Velvet spoke of death flatly, like she had been speaking about far too much. "But she wasn't saddened by the burden of children. On and on she went about her baby. If it was a boy, she wanted him called Apollo. For a girl, she wanted Celeste. And so that's that."

Celeste's eyes were welling up. "I wish I could have met her."

Velvet nodded. "I wish the same for you and for Apollo. I would have liked for you two to have met Adonis, too. Oh, he was so honorable. And I would like to see my Ambrosia again as well. But do you know what? Such thoughts can wait. We will see them all again someday."

She paused.

"And now, Apollo and Celeste, is not that time."

Apollo was actually really liking this woman. She was strong, at least mentally. She was determined. Perhaps she'd even trained at one time. Apollo could imagine that when she was his age, she would have made a formidable competitor. And she wasn't letting her age bring her down. He found this admirable.

Okay, Velvet wasn't physically strong. She was his grandmother. That word would take some getting used to. What was he supposed to call her, when she had been a stranger hardly five minutes ago? But all put aside, she would do. She would have to.

Velvet went on. "I was gone from the world for so long. It was all so much, losing so many people close to me. And when I was lucid, I thought only of you two and the guilt that weighed me down was unbearable. But now that I can finally see you again, I'm not throwing this away. I refuse to let my family slip through my fingers again."

A smile formed on Celeste's lips. Apollo knew that these words meant a lot to his sister. He was glad to hear them, too.

Velvet held up a spindly finger. "Oh, you may think that I'm weak. But I assure you, when I give every ounce of strength I have, I am someone to watch out for. It's the same for anyone. All we have to do is give every ounce of strength we have because this is life or death. So, what can you do?"

"Uh, what?" Apollo spluttered, in a way he was sure sounded just tremendously intelligent.

"You know, what are you good at? I presume you've trained, at least for a little?"

"Of course," Celeste answered almost immediately. "We've been going to the training center full-time since we were eight years old. Apollo's excellent with machetes. They're like an extension of his arm by now. He's also a formidable competitor in hand-to-hand combat." She looked over at Apollo and he smiled back at her. Though he didn't feel anything behind it, he wanted to reassure her at least. Even though he was still kind of in shock.

"Celeste is wicked smart." He finally said. "She knows all this stuff about plants and random survival facts most Careers don't know. She mostly just uses knives, but her brain is her best weapon. Really."

Velvet smiled. "Now this is good to hear. I think we'll work fine together. Now let's talk strategy." Her voice carried a steady, determined tone.

Celeste sat up straighter. This was her strength. "Velvet, you and I will run as fast as humanly possible as soon as the gong rings. We grab whatever supplies we can and don't kill any other tributes unless we're at risk for our lives. I don't want targets to be on our backs if our kill's family decides to avenge them. We need to watch out for that. And it's inevitable that we join the Career pack, at least for the first couple of days. After that, we can sneak off. Then, once the Careers start dying at the hands of other tributes, if that happens, we can start thinking of how to take down the rest of them."

Apollo rubbed his hands. "I like the sound of that."

Velvet clenched her fists. "We will get through this. We will come back alive and I'm going to finally make my brother proud."

The Peacekeeper at the door cleared his throat again. "Lockheart family, it is time to board the train that will take you to the Capital."

Apollo stood up on steady legs. "Remember what I told you, Celeste. Don't stare out your window when the train pulls out. Don't even look behind you. There's no need to say goodbye to this place because we are coming back. And we'll be back real soon."

**A/N Thank you, sc148 for letting me make some pretty big adjustments to your wonderful characters. It's pretty cool that you took the time to submit to another one of my SYOTs! Glad to have you back. As for the rest of you, I hope you enjoyed this first chapter. Hopefully for those who didn't read my first story, it still made some sense. Maybe. **

**Yes, I have changed something significant, if any noticed. There will be no volunteers! This is because, unfortunately, many of my submitters did not elaborate enough on their tribute's choice to volunteer. I love ya'll, but seriously. PM me with some more elaboration. Some of you don't have to and you know who you are.**

**Here is the list so far.**

**District One: By sc148**

**Apollo Lockheart (16)**

**Celeste Lockheart (16)**

**Velvet Lockheart (64)**

**District Two: By Rosemarie Benson**

**Dakota Anneliese "Koda" Mitchell (18)**

**Kathryn Mitchell (48)**

**James Mitchell (49)**

**District Three: By The Mockingjay Lives**

**Roy Peregrine (15)**

**Calob Peregrine (67)**

**Ashella Peregrine (65)**

**District Four: By BecauseofKillianJones**

**Fehlix Khouryn (18)**

**Pihlar Khouryn (44)**

**Ceshar Khouryn (44)**

**Palohma Khouryn ( 15 )**

**Bianiz Khouryn (18) **

**Jonathany Khouryn (2)**

**District Five: By ABookwormNamedSteph**

**Shawn "Shade" Day (16)**

**Lisa Day (29)**

**Chuck Day: (40)**

**Nate Day: (7)**

**District Six: By RuetheDay**

**Circe Saffrone (16)**

**Hart Saffrone. (47)**

**Grifin Saffrone (18)**

**District Seven: By drinkthatliquorstore**

**Lyana Sectroe (17)**

**Dyson Sectroe (49)**

**Ayana Sectroe (47)**

**District Eight:**

**Open! I would love a younger tribute here.**

**District Nine: By God of Time and Destruction (Please PM me for more details or I may have to replace Roan. This is an emergency!)**

**Roan Martinez (17)**

**Vine Martinez(5)**

**Lux Martinez (12)**

**Calcus Martinez (35) **

**Sapphire Martinezc(35)**

**District Ten: Reserved for Kitty!**

**District Eleven: By cherrybubble**

**Abra Millith (18)**

**Ceresis Millith (18)**

**Mazie Millith (9)**

**Ryeic Millith (40)**

**District Twelve: Reserved**


	3. District Two: Cold Shadows

**A/N Aaannd…we're back! I have a lot of schoolwork and writing really should just be for fun, so don't panic if I don't update exactly every two weeks or so. Anyway, I've made some significant changes to my District Two family, so take note. Koda now has a younger sister named Quinn (age 15, as I just had way too many 16 year olds) and Quinn will have a POV. Koda is a challenging character and so is her family situation, so I hope I do all this justice.**

**Mitchell Family**

**Quinn (15)**

**Dakota "Koda" (18)**

**Kathryn Mitchell (42)**

**James Mitchell (44)**

Quinn watched as her sister ran the dagger through the dummy.

Koda's face was one of extreme concentration. Her eyes glistened with something more than adrenaline. She was happy doing this. In her element. Her deep red ponytail, the end rimmed with dampness from sweat, swung behind her. Like everything else about her, it was sharp and tight. Koda stepped back to admire her handiwork. The dummy was had been sliced and stabbed so many times Quinn thought it had died years ago.

But Koda was a very exact girl. A perfectionist. Nothing was ever good enough for her. Quinn twirled a strand of her own mouse brown hair around her finger and watched the flame-colored ponytail on her sister's head do its familiar dance as Koda repeated the movements. Quinn couldn't help but admire her sister. It was a fearful admiration, though. The two had never been very close, at least not the way one would expect a sister bond to be like. That was okay with Quinn. She wasn't affectionate and neither was Koda. They communicated primarily with nods and silent eye rolls to each other.

It was just their way.

Quinn walked across the room. It was a makeshift training area for her and her sister. They were visitors to the underground facility in the outskirts of their district as well, but as it was far away, it simply wasn't convenient. They had all they needed here. The room had been finished a year ago and it lay in the basement of their one story, two room little house. A circle of dummies stood in the middle for close-combat practice. There was the old screen they could watch past Games on. There was a weapons rack. Knives were inexpensive and Koda could buy hers from anyone on the street.

Quinn, however, was a different story.

Not many kids in Two were archers. Quinn hypothesized that this was because archery actually required some intelligence. Just the sort of thing no one in this godforsaken place seemed to possess. Girls in Two, if they trained, usually threw knives. That, however, was a very difficult thing to do and required more hand-eye coordination than Quinn was capable of. Yeah, a girl couldn't have both wits and coordination. To Quinn, archery was easy. It was a natural extension of her own mind. Simple physics.

Her archery range was outside the tiny house. Koda sometimes used the range with her knives as well. She hardly ever missed. If she did miss, the bright flash in her eyes went out immediately and was replaced by cold, hard anger.

Koda was an intense girl.

She always had been. The adults in the Mitchell family used to whisper to each other that Koda had really only cried once in her life. When she came out of her mother's belly. And even then, it was more screaming than anything else. Quinn remembered her mother saying that Koda hadn't said a word until she was two. Oh, she wasn't stupid. Far from it. She was only silently observing. Watching and waiting until she had formulated something intelligent enough to say.

Her first word, it must be mentioned, was "Goodbye."

From what Quinn could remember, her mother had said that Koda had said this word quietly as her father left the house for his work. When Koda said it, she had been smiling. A tight lipped smile, but a smile nonetheless. Although Quinn hadn't even been born yet, it didn't take an expert to deduce that Koda had absolutely no bond formed with her father.

Her hatred of him was far, far different from Quinn's, though.

First of all, he had never wanted his girls to train. And Koda, on her first day of grade school, had come back to the house announcing that she wanted to go train with the rest of the children when she was old enough. Her teacher had said it was the greatest honor a child could have. Winning the Games. Imagine. Quinn's teacher had given them the same speech. And she, too, felt riveted by it. Even as a six year old. People think six year olds aren't capable of deciding what it best for them. But Quinn knew what she wanted. And so did Koda.

They had disagreed with nearly everything the cowardly, sniveling man had said from the point onward. All the other fathers let their girls train. And their Daddy hated them. He wouldn't let them have their chance at being famous, too.

One day, when Koda was eleven and Quinn was eight years old, Koda decided to sneak into the underground training center. It took them one half hour long train trip on a car meant for cattle, not humans. But that was what it took. The only real train they would get to go on would be the one taking them to the Capital when they got to go to the Games.

They only needed to stay for a few hours. Koda got her hands on a knife and the rest was history.

This was what she had to do. And that was that. They didn't care what their father or mother said or did to prevent them from training. Quinn was nothing but a tag along for a while, to the prodigy that was Koda. Until the day she was ten years old and shot her first arrow. Oh, she loved it. It gave her such a feeling of control. She understood then why Koda spent so much time throwing knives. Weapons gave them both a sene of power when, at that time, they had none. That was when their life started spiraling.

Their dear old Daddy was drinking more and the mother was popping those strange little white pills all the time that made her go someplace else entirely. Koda said she was leaving by the time she was seventeen. That was a year and a half ago.

At the time, Quinn had been surprised. To leave in a rage of fury over their parents was more a Quinn thing to do. Koda merely sat in the corner, fuming over with silent hatred. Quinn knew she was the more emotional one, by far. The one with the sharp temper to match her sharp tongue.

Now they were here in this little house they paid for by Koda's day job working as a cleaner and laundress for Peacekeepers. Quinn did that as well. She knew how much her sister wanted to go to the Games because the usually extremely proud Kora was degrading herself like that.

Quinn went to look at the dust-covered mirror in the corner. She brushed a stray piece of hair from her very average brown eyes. "Koda, do you think there's a chance we could get picked this year? You know, since people can't volunteer?"

Koda straightened her already stiff collar. She was wearing a black collared shirt over green pants. "There's always a chance, Quinn. But if, for some reason, you're nervous about being picked because you are so young and all, I don't think you have anything to worry about."

"Koda, I think 'worried' is the last way to describe how I feel. Who do you think I am, a little scrawny twelve year old from Eleven?" Quinn retorted. She laughed. "If I get picked to go to the Games, it looks like you'll be headed there with me."

Her sister smiled slightly. Koda did not smile often. Except when the Games were brought up. Quinn was very much the same way. Though Koda smiled because of the Games themselves. This Quinn knew for a fact. Koda wanted to see people die at her hands. She wanted power. She wanted to show their parents, who had never supported them in anything at all, that they could be so much more. That they were so much more.

But Quinn. Quinn was different. She had always known that she was more brains than brawn. She was the girl in the classroom who was always challenging her teachers. She always knew more than everyone else. It wasn't the physical aspect of the Games that excited her. She found no delight in the thought of her arrow piercing another's flesh. Though, she was always happy when her calculations had been proven correct. If she could calculate the distance between her and her target mentally, simple physics told her how far above she should aim her arrow to factor in gravity. And when this worked on a target, it was a satisfying feeling indeed.

On a human, though? The very thought made Quinn cringe just slightly. Only, she would never admit that.

She was in this for the fame. The fortune. The adoring crowds who waved at her and called out to her. She was after the attention she had never really received.

"We'd better get over there, then." Koda sighed. "Not much time left until the Reaping starts. Make sure your hair is right and everything, Quinn." She gave her younger sister an exasperated look and crossed her arms, as if nothing made her more annoyed.

"I'm fifteen, not five." Quinn snapped. "And you're only three years older than me anyway, Koda."

Koda sighed. "C'mon, Quinn. I just want you to look good for the cameras in case I get picked. Which, by the way, is very likely considering I put in the maximum amount of tesserae I could. That's practically like volunteering. My name's in there nearly fifty times more than most. Besides, those little weak and fragile kids at the center know better than to take my place."

"What do you mean?" Quinn asked hesitantly. Okay, she did love her sister. Even if her sister never returned the bond, Quinn had to have affection for _someone. _But she still wouldn't put anything past Koda. Anything.

Her sister looked in the mirror and smiled to herself. Her smile had an eerily satisfied look to it. "You know Cori Evans? Or Styx Brior?"

"Yeah," Quinn nodded. "They're both in my training group. Styx is massive. Every time I see him wrestling, I visibly cringe for his opponent. Why?"

This made Koda's grin even wider. "They were planning on doing the same thing as me, you know. Putting their names in there as many times as possible. Oh, but they didn't, Quinn. I just had to give them my word." She laughed. But her laugh sounded more like shattering, pointed glass than anything else. A laugh that could cut right into your skin and make it bleed. "I didn't even pick up my dagger. My word was enough. I ought to teach you how to do that, Quinny." She used her old nickname for her sister. One Quinn hardly ever heard used. "You're really not very threatening at all," She closed bluntly.

Quinn snorted in reply but found she had nothing else to say. Again, Koda had gone and outdone herself. Threatening the massive Styx? Or Cori, who made a growl every time her knife hit the target, which was more times than a person could count?

Koda stepped back from the mirror, satisfied with whatever she saw. She raised her hand. "Come on. Let's go."

Like an obedient puppy, Quinn followed. Out of their dilapidated excuse for a house. Back home, their apartment wasn't large either. But it was cozy and their mother did her best to make it warm. That was just how she was. She would spend hours cleaning and straightening and even putting flowers in the window boxes, something that not many other people in the district did. Two was a cold place to grow up and everyone in it knew that and liked it just fine that way. But not their mother, Kathryn. No, she saw something more in it.

Somedays, Quinn did feel pangs of sadness hit her suddenly. As much as she tried to become as cold and detached as she was sure her trainers wanted her to become, she still missed her mother's smiling face, telling her good night. How many years had it been since she had seen that face?

As Quinn walked out of her house and into the late-morning sun, she felt a wave of anger rush over her. She was a heated person and had frequently been told that she had quite a temper. But when it came to Koda, nothing could be done except seethe in silent loathing.

She was here because of Koda. Not home. Not in her mother's embrace. Even her father, weak and cowardly as he was, had always had the warmest gaze.

No. Koda was her ticket to going to the Games. Koda was her one-way path to fame and fortune and…and _love._

So that was that.

The sisters walked down a narrow stone path that crossed through the outer, poorer area of Two that lay right under the huge mountain's shadow. Stone houses that seemed to wilt from age and neglect sat on the sides of the path. Families, gaunt and serious looking, stood in the doorways. Children with sunken cheeks and hollow eyes walked in their direction, dressed in clothes that looked nice on the first glance, but were really torn and frayed. A pack of boys looking like the age of their first Reaping yelled and laughed to each other and threw stones. Like this was any other day. Though even Quinn could see that there was something in their eyes that wasn't in the eyes of the children of the other districts. There was a glee in them. The Reaping was a festive day in Two, unlike those other pathetic somber districts.

It stood for a chance of the children and families of the district to prove themselves. To bring honor.

Honor. What a perfect word, Quinn thought to herself. Her deep green skirt, made of some cheap velvet imitation, swung at her knees. She forced herself to focus on just walking and not letting her mind get carried away. Regrettably, she was extremely clumsy. Damn these District Two kids and their impeccable fine motor skills. Needless to say, she was the subject of many a stare. She clutched her fists and kept on walking. She would show them soon enough.

Their path eventually found its way out of shacks with tin roofs and the buildings got increasingly higher. All were made of cold, gray stone. Throngs of people now walked towards the Square. There were even more people than usual, of course. The families knew that if their child was picked, they would be going to the Games as well. Quinn caught snippets of energetic kids' conversations, talking about who would be picked and what they would do to win. Laughing and pushing each other around.

Parents followed with more drawn faces. They knew they were not young. They couldn't run as fast or jump as high or have as much strength. Some parents, Quinn saw out of the corner of her plain born eyes, walked past with pride displayed. Perhaps eager to get a chance to go into the arena. Most didn't have this, though.

A sudden thought came to her mind and Quinn felt her cheeks flame up.

Koda seemed to read her mind. "Don't worry. The odds of us even seeing each other are so low. They probably aren't here. Remember what they used to say? The Games just weren't their kind of _thing._" She spat out that last word, obviously displaying her hatred for their incredibly indifferent parental unit.

Quinn and her sister had one thing in common.

Both viewed indifference as a mortal sin.

A flash of dark hair tied with a single red string rushed towards Quinn. Acadia ran up next to her and began to walk with the two sisters. Koda stiffened at the sight of her younger sister's friend. Quinn knew Koda disapproved of forming any sort of bond with anyone. "To risky," She would say. "To risky to get attached to anyone, Quinn."

But Quinn was human, even though her sister clearly was not.

Besides, she had been training with Acadia since the day she first picked up a bow. Both were archers, and so were used to disapproving looks by their brutish, machete-swinging peers. Acadia had been doing archery since she was nine and was a year young than Quinn, at fourteen. She was fiercely intelligent but far more of a people pleaser than Quinn was. She was a listener, while Quinn was a talker. She thought things through, while Quinn rushed to action. They complimented each other and did target practice every day together.

Acadia's father was wildly for the Games. As a child, Quinn had been jealous of a man so supportive of his daughter. Lately though, she wasn't so sure. Sometimes Acadia would come to training, her face white from fear of the man. Bruises sometimes dotted her arms. And small, circular marks any child from Two could recognize as cigarette burns. The traditional method of punishment if a child wasn't training hard enough.

Now, Acadia seemed focused on the road in front of them which led right to the Square. She bit her lip, chewing it in through in that way of hers Quinn had become so familiar with. "You think I could get picked?" She finally asked.

Koda visibly bristled. "That depends on how many times you submitted your name in, Acadia." Her voice came out sharp and cold as an icicle.

Acadia seemed unfazed by the tone. She rarely was fazed by anything. Except today. "It's in there no more than most." She answered simply. "I guess I don't have anything to worry about then, do I?" She clapped a hand over her mouth. "Not that I'm worried or anything! I just don't feel I'm at all ready yet, you know? It's certainly not my year. Besides, I would have to take my little brat of a brother in there with me." Her lips curved up into a thin smile that never reached her eyes.

A short, shape bark of a laugh bursted from Koda's throat. "Of course you aren't ready, Acadia. You won't ever have to worry about going to the Games, though, I assure you. I don't think anyone would tolerate you volunteering." She laughed again. "I mean really. You're pretty tiny and I don't think people would be willing to send in an archer, after all." She flipped her reddish-gold hair simply and kept right on walking, as though her words weren't laced with needles at all.

But this time, Acadia's face fell. She whipped her head around and looked at Quinn in desperation. For her to come rescue her. To scold her sister for those cruel, and pretty senseless words.

Her face fell even more when Quinn didn't make a sound.

Slowly, with her head still somehow held high, Acadia made her way over to the signing-in table all alone. She turned her back on Quinn with her cheeks red and burning. Anyone could plainly see that the girl was biting her lip to keep from crying.

Koda watched her. She shook her head. "Honestly, I don't know why you put up with that girl. She's nothing like the rest of us. She's always been so much more….well, sensitive. You were never all that sensitive, you know. Temperamental, yeah. But not sensitive. She's too weak to be around you, Quinn. If you absolutely have to have friends, go find yourself some more worthwhile company."

"Just shut up!" Quinn shouted. Then, she jumped back in surprise at her own tone. And it public, too! Few noticed, though. They were all too busy talking about this year's Quell to pay attention to the two teenage girls in the middle of the Square, one red in the face from anger and one looking very smug indeed.

Quinn stomped her foot. "Acadia's the best company, Koda. Just because she actually has emotions, it doesn't mean she's weak, you know. She's an excellent archer, nearly as good as I am even though she's younger. It's not my fault everyone hates you and no one would ever want to be friends with you! They know you'd literally slit their throats if it meant you could climb the ladder!"

Her sister looked at her with a calm, steady gaze. "That's because I'm ambitious, Quinn," she said slowly, annunciating each word like she was talking to a small child. She grabbed Quinn's arm. "Let's go sign ourselves in before you make a fool of yourself in front of the whole district by acting like a small child."

If she was mad before, Quinn was livid now. But she knew that there was nothing she could do. Koda delighted in heated up her sister's short fuse. She was entertained by the explosion that followed and always amused by her sister's tantrums and shouting. Koda never shouted. She knew not to give others that satisfaction. Quinn did try to be the same, she really did. It just never worked for her. Now though, she was not going to give her sister that satisfaction.

She waited silently in line until it was her turn to thrust her arm forward for a drop of blood to be collected. This was to verify that she was no coward who decided to ditch the Reaping. Such a thought was unimaginable, especially in Two.

Quinn shuddered when the needle entered her arm and the pinch followed. She willed herself to look away and hoped no one noticed her only-too-obvious fear of all things needle-related.

It didn't take an especially observant person to see that when Koda stepped in line, all the kids visibly parted. Even the ones Quinn was sure had never even seen her sister. Koda just gave off this sort of regal air. Like she knew something everyone else did not.

Which she usually did.

It seemed the right thing to do to separate from her sister and go to her place in the Square by herself. This was her sister's last Reaping. Now what did that mean for her? Well, for one thing her sister's name was in there the maximum times allotted.

And family came too.

Still, Quinn couldn't quite wrap her head around the fact that she could go into the Games this year. In fact, the statistics deemed it likely. She was fifteen years old. And while Koda did not have time, Quinn did. At least, it seemed that way to her.

It always appeared that way, didn't it?

Okay, she could see herself winning. She shut her eyes amidst the throngs of teenagers, all trying to find their correct places. Once she was sure she was in the right spot, she squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to the Victory Parade. A glorious return to her district when all these same people, all hundreds upon hundreds of them, would be shouting her name. No longer would she be in anyone's shadow. Actually, she would cast a shadow so far and wide it would darken anything in sight!

Take that, Koda! And her parents too…well wouldn't they be surprised?

No, she was not going to the Games this year with her sister. Someone else would be picked, some scrawny little girl whose own failures in the Games would make Quinn's eventual win seem all the more impressive. Yes, that seemed right. Funny, how perfectly planned out everything was inside her own head.

It never seemed to work out that way. But Quinn was willing to ignore all of that.

Several girls jostled and pushed into her, cutting her off from her all too short reverie. Ah, if only daydreams could last forever. She recognized a few of the girls from training. Not all the girls here did train, but it was likely that many of them did.

The way it worked in Two was like this. Most of the parents in the district, Quinn's own messed up ones aside, sent their children to an underground center somewhere to try out training for the Games for a little while. If the child had agility, strength or speed shown immediately, usually that child kept going for a few more years. Weapons were introduced around the age of nine or ten. If the child showed strength in one or more weapons, he or she continued on. If eventually said strength wore off or reached its peak when the child was young and never quite got any better, the child would be taken out of training. And so there was no selective system or anything close to it. Nothing in Two was organized.

However, the people always managed to get the job done.

Just so, by Quinn's age there were only a few kids her age left at her particular center. And those were only the guaranteed best of the best. There was Cora, with her knife skills that were enough to make a grown man tremble at the sight. (Though, evidently, not enough to stand up to Quinn's actually rather small sister. But that was a matter of its own.) And there was one of Quinn's usual training partners, Terah, who was a very silent, focused sort of girl.

It was true that Quinn did not distance herself from others one bit. If there was a girl at the center who appeared to be focused on training and showed at least a bit of brains to her, why shouldn't Quinn go over and introduce herself?

Though she was sure the District Two stereotypes dictated that the girls were all sadistic murderers with not a thought in their heads beside lust for blood, she knew them not to be true one bit. Acadia wouldn't hurt a fly and Terah's eyes only held a calculating, focused look when she threw a dagger. Never a sinister glint that told she was enjoying what she was doing at all. Using the weapons was the same for all three girls. It was a way out of their less than ideal living situations.

Not something to be enjoyed.

The same was for Quinn.

But oh, what would happen after she won? After she'd gotten it all over and done with? Well, that was another matter entirely.

She would stand up on the stage right where the escort was showing the video of past Games right now. Right where the mayor was standing proudly. She would stand exactly where all the past victors were standing! Their faces were etched with pride. They had brought Two honor. Had shown the president, again, what a reputable place District Two was. When Quinn won, she knew she would shake hands with Snow and look him right in the eyes. And thank him for the opportunity given to her.

Because she would have gone up from the ashes, from nothing at all, from the shame that had fallen after the Dark Days. And from her own pitifully indifferent family.

And then, she would've turned all that into something wonderful. A true victory, if there ever was one.

She would wave to all the people, wearing the finest dress and the largest smile anyone ever had seen. Nah, she wasn't the type to look all stoic. She had always worn her emotions on her sleeve, after all. Besides, that would be the epitome of a joyous occasion!

All these masses of people would be calling her name.

_Quinn Mitchell! Quinn Mitchell!_

A sudden shout startled her like nothing else ever had. Up on the stage, the escort had shouted a name. One Quinn new well.

"Dakota Mitchell!"

**The Goodbye Room**

Quinn focused in on her sister, who was sitting in a chair and looking out the window.

They were high up, about six floors above the street, which was busy with crowds of people going home. Surely, they were talking about the two sisters who had just been picked. Most probably did not know either of the girls, which made the thought even more thrilling to Quinn. Some people even stopped walking to look up at the window into the room where the two girls sat.

"Isn't it something? Those people down there are probably all talking about us," Koda said, seemingly reading Quinn's mind.

"Yeah." Quinn sat up straighter in her seat, her muscles tense with excitement. "It really is."

But Koda was not grinning. This was not the reaction Quinn was expecting. Why did she seems so uneasy? Koda kept looking out the window. Only now it hardly seemed like she was looking down excitedly like Quinn was. It was like she expecting something awful to come their way.

She had never seen her sister like this. It seemed to her that when she did finally see her sister crack, she would be satisfied. It would be like the unbreakable Koda had finally been broken. Like she had been proved to be not the invincible everyone thought she was. Especially, Quinn knew, that was just the way she thought of herself, too. To say Koda was a little on the vain side would be an understatement. So shouldn't it be at least a little welcome to see her vain confidence crack just a bit?

No. Now that she had finally seen it, Quinn decided she didn't like it one bit.

Koda's face was so pale. It looked like she was seeing a ghost or something. Her eyes were narrowed and her lips drawn thin in one white line across her face. They kept darting around the room and back to the window. Around and back.

Quinn couldn't take it anymore. "You okay, Koda? Come on. Get excited. We're going to take this by storm."

Her sister's eyes flashed. "I know that!" She snapped. "What, you think I'm scared or something?"

Quinn recoiled back in her chair. She wished she could sink into it and just become one with the fabric. "Umm…no." She muttered. She cast her eyes down in surrender. There was no sense in getting her sister mad now. "It's just that you looked kind of scared a second ago, that's all."

Koda shook her head sharply. "You are such an idiot sometimes. It's because I'm not too keen on the idea of seeing our parents again, Quinn."

"Well, we are emancipated, you know," Quinn said simply. And they were. They hadn't seen their parents in about a year, really. So much time spent away from them and Quinn really didn't miss them at all anymore. Really. Okay, maybe sometimes. But then it usually only involved her mother's cooking. Or her smile. Or feeling a hand on her shoulder.

But that was then! And this was now.

Koda scoffed at Quinn as though she had just said something incredibly stupid."It's not that simple. We're still related to them by blood and that much is not going to change. You remember how a few weeks ago they made every single person get his or her blood drawn, don't you?"

Quinn nodded. Though she wouldn't admit it, she had not enjoyed that one bit. Actually, she'd teared up and nearly passed out, a fact that she had been ashamed of for quite a while. It was not like a District Two girl to be hematophobic, even just a little bit. And Quinn was not "just a little bit."

"Our parents had to get that too, Quinn. Everyone got it so that it could be ensured that no one would just run off and desert. And as you and I both know, that seems like something they would do," Koda snorted and crossed her arms. "I am not looking forward to seeing those two again."

"Me neither!" Quinn exclaimed. But just a little part of her, a teeny itty bitty bit, did want to. Just slightly! She did want to see how they were doing. If they were still okay or not. She hoped they were. Oh, she didn't hate them, really! Even though she sometimes thought she did. She hated their indifference, but not every aspect of them. They were, after all, her family.

Maybe all this time it was Koda who her hatred should have been directed to. Well, not hatred. Dislike, maybe. Because now, it seemed, it would be much harder to get out of the large and impressive shadow that Koda had cast over her. They were both going to the Games together. That was definitely not part of Quinn's plan. Koda was never supposed to set foot in the arena. That was far too risky for Quinn. If given the chance, Koda could really dominate. She could hold the Capital in her hand.

Would their parents coming with them make a difference, though? Probably not.

And just at that very moment, the heavy wooden door that led into the large and well-furnished room was opened. A Peacekeeper, dressed in white, led in two adults. He wore an expressionless face. Quinn realized that to him, this was just another day of work. He grabbed her mother's arm and pulled her in a little too roughly for Quinn's liking.

She was surprised at the amount of anger she felt over this. And then she was mad at her self for still feeling a connection to these two pathetic people she and her sister had left a long time ago.

Their parents stepped inside and the door swung shut, banging so loudly their mother nearly jumped out of her skin. She always had been easily frightened. Regrettably, Quinn seemed to have inherited this. Damn genetics or whatever.

Immediately, their mother ran to embrace both of them. She wasn't holding anything back at all. Koda stiffened up so much she looked like she was going to pop. The image actually made Quinn smile a little. Okay, so they were both mad at their folks. But man, wasn't it time to loosen up a little and let some things go? They were all in this together now, like it or not. And that was the way it was going to stay.

The more she thought about, the more Quinn began to realize that this was probably the optimal attitude to take towards her very uncomfortable-looking parental unit.

Her mother hugged her so tightly Quinn felt like her arms were going to go limp. How long had it been since someone hugged her? Just her mother, really. And the last time she could remember was when she was seven and broke her arm playing a little too roughly on the playground. Affectionate parents were not the norm in Two and even her clueless ones knew that. She couldn't remember her father ever hugging her. And yet there he was, looking like he wasn't going to stop his wife from such a display of affection.

"I missed you so much, Quinn," her mother whispered. "I don't care whether you missed me or not. I missed you. And you too, Koda." She directed this at the sulking girl in the corner, evidently quite upset for her parents having rained on her little parade.

And what a dark parade it was. Everything with Koda had always been dark and her parents had never fully understood this. Any other parent in Two would have been happy with such a serious and intense girl as Dakota Mitchell. The only thing she had ever done to her actual parents was confuse them. Quinn had been far more straightforward. Sarcasm and biting words, oh sure. But never just the silent brooding that had been Koda. Still, as Quinn reflected on it, she realized her parents really did try to reach out to Koda.

She gave another quick little glance at her sister, who frowned deeply. She looked over at Quinn, who was between her mother's arms, expectantly. She wanted Quinn to squirm away. To turn her back on their terribly indifferent cowardly parents once and for all.

But that was what Koda wanted. And that fact in and of itself was all the incentive Quinn needed to do what she did next.

Quinn slowly raised her arms and, admittedly quite limply, returned her mother's embrace. "I missed you too," she said firmly and loudly and not in a whisper at all. Quinn never whispered. If she had something to say, she said it. And damn it, she had something to say now.

Her mother was so surprised that she actually stepped back a bit at first. But then she stepped forward again and back into Quinn's embrace, hugging her daughter even more firmly now that she had Quinn's support.

Huh. This support thing was kind of two-sided, wasn't it?

Koda grunted in disapproval. "Just because we're going into the Games with them doesn't mean we have to fall over and embrace them. What's dear Quinny gonna do now, eh? Weep tears of joy from this momentous reunion? Come on. We're about to fight to the death."

"Shut up," Quinn muttered. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her father actually smile a little. How long had it been since she had last seen him do that?

Far too long.

"We're emancipated." Koda said matter-of-factly to her. "We don't owe them anything. Just stay separate from them, Quinn. Remember your training and I'll remember mine. But whatever happens to them is not our concern, got it? It's not like we can all go home. That's just not possible. I mean, look at the statistics."

Their father cast his eyes downward at this, but didn't say a word.

Well fine. It looked like Quinn was just going to have to speak for them then. "No, Koda. It is what it is. And we are going to stay together. I don't care how much you refute that. Four people, even though two aren't skilled with weapons or anything, are much more protected than only two. Technically speaking, I can't be legally emancipated yet either. I'm only fifteen. I just followed you, Koda. But maybe I shouldn't always be doing that."

To her surprise, Koda actually nodded a little. "You're right. Four is better than one. It was stupid of me to think otherwise."

Quinn sat up straighter. She was liking this. Maybe she had always been meant to take charge. "Okay. I say we join the Career pack. You know, the family from one and maybe the family from Four, depending on the age of the tribute."

Koda cocked her head in thought. "Yeah, but I have one condition for joining said Career pack." She wrinkled her nose slightly. Quinn knew that her sister was an atypical Career in that she never thought the pack was a good idea. Koda had always had an 'every man for himself' mentality.

"What is it?" Their father asked softly.

Koda stood up so that she was seeing eye to eye with both their mother and their father. "We lead the pack. The Mitchell family, I mean. If you don't know what to do, any of you, I will take charge. We're only joining the pack because, let's face it, for the first few days that would be beneficial to us."

"What happens after the first few days?" But Quinn pretty much already knew the answer to her own question.

"We kill them all," Koda said, just as light and airy as can be. " I don't care how. It doesn't have to bloody or a big show. Hell, poison their food or slit their throats while they sleep. Anything so we can get ahead. So we're one step closer to winning.

This was Koda.

Her mentality was cold. She was brutal, to say the least. But the district's influence had gotten its hold on Quinn too and even she knew that much. "That sounds like a plan to me," she said simply.

Quinn and Koda's mother stepped back and looked at her two daughters. "I don't know what to think," she said softly. "I don't know what to do. We haven't seen each other in a year and now this." Her face seemed to fall in worry. "I don't care what you think of me or your father. I don't want the last time I see my daughters to be right before I die. Or worse, one of you." Her voice nearly dropped off entirely at those last few words.

"We are not going to die," Koda said fiercely. "We've been training for this for years. We're going to bring our district honor. And even if you and dad don't believe the Games are honorable, well, we're going to win them anyway because we don't have a choice."

At this, their father smiled again. "That's my girl," he said. And for once, his voice was full of pride.

Quinn gripped the armrest of her chair. "You know what? The Games brought us back together again. Whether we wanted it or not. And I swear by my life, we are going to get _out _of them together too."

Koda finally shot an approving glance at her sister. "You'd better hope they do something with your hair, Quinn. You're going to be on camera a lot the next few weeks."

The family got up. Reluctantly so, but they were together. It was going to take a lot more to bring them to the way a normal family was. But screw normal. No one even knew what it was anyone. Quinn surveyed her family of worn but just barely noticeably hopeful parents and a sister who was finally looking like she had some pride in that situation she was in at the moment.

The way Quinn saw it, this was her life.

And now, she was going to fight for it.

**A/N I hope both Rosemarie Benson and Flyere are okay with the changes I made to their wonderful submissions. I appreciate all of my submitters and want them all to be included somehow! **

**If you noticed, I have changed this SYOT to third person, past tense. Let me know what you think of the change!**

**ALL my spots are filled. Thank you to all who submitted! You are now part of my community of submitters and readers whom I shall call my minions. Ah, I love you all!**

**Seriously though. Let me know at any time if there is anything I can for your character. **

**This chapter was a little shorter. I apologize, but I think I put down what was needed to be put down. So that's that. **


	4. District Three: Cruel Memories

**A/N Thank you to The Mockingjay Lives for your submission of Roy and his family. This was a very well done submission and I hope I can do it justice for you, Ally!**

**Peregrine Family**

**Roy (15)**

**Ashella (65)**

**Calob (67)**

Roy studied the numbers on the page. They marched across, clean and black and all straight. Each one knew its story and knew just where it fit into everything else.

There was nothing frightening in numbers. No, they were old friends to Roy Peregrine. He was comforted by their predictability. Plug one thing into a particular function and that number would be the same thing every time. Methodical and wonderful, if you asked him.

He wasn't so far gone from the reality of the world that he spent all his time doing math, though. Of course not. But looking at these familiar numbers always seemed to calm him down and settle his mind for what was to come. And with all the events about to happen today, he was sure he was going to need a little settling.

The sun was only just making its journey up on the horizon. When Roy had woke, it was still pitch black out. He could not sleep. Not on a day like today. Now he was sitting at the worn desk of his, crammed into the corner of his tiny bedroom. His desk was right next to a window, from which he could see the street below. The streetlights were still on, casting a warm glow on the wet pavement, making it shimmer. The streets were empty and Roy felt calm and alone.

Being alone was not an unwelcome feeling to him.

His desk was completely covered in papers. There were charts and diagrams and scale drawings. Lines started and seemed to go on forever. Numbers marched silently across white pages, every problem quietly and diligently completed by Roy's scrawl.

But Roy knew that the real treasures of this cluttered mess lay in the drawers. They had been shoved back there in the hopes that they would be seen by no eyes except the wide, owl-like brown ones of their creator.

They were maps. Each one was meticulously drawn, down to the very most minute details. Some were colored with pale water colors, while others were left black and white. They were drawn to scale, a feat in itself which surely must have taken an extremely detailed hand and a lot of time. Both of which Roy had. He had spent countless hours working on these maps. That one of the huge forest, with the mountain at its center, was his first. He was still proud of those lines, slightly shaky from a twelve year old's hand.

A twelve year old who had already seen too much.

Every year, during the time of the Games, Roy made a map of the arena. And not just any map either. A map that showed where important events had occurred and when. There weren't just maps in those drawers either.

Crumpled and crinkled and shoved in the eaves were dozens upon dozens of pictures. Faces of children. There were girls with dark hair and pale skin,staring blankly. There were tough-looking guys with their hair swept to the side, trying hard to look composed as possible. Others glared with intimidating glances. Some were very young and others looked even older than eighteen.

All of them had been tributes in past Games. Roy had studied their pictures on his grandparent's television. Yes, they were one of the few families who had one. They were some of the elite, his grandfather being very high up in his position as a Peacekeeper.

At the bottom of their pictures, a few letters were scrawled out in pencil. A single sentence on each one, really. They were quotes the tributes had said, usually during the interviews, that stuck out to Roy. He shuffled through them, sifting around and then chose one at random. It showed a picture of a dark haired girl who had startling bright blue eyes. She was from the Games two years ago, from District Ten.

"I will get home to my family," it read on the bottom. "There is just no other option."

Roy smoothed out the wrinkles of the paper and stared down at his drawing. Of course it was life-like. All of his drawings were. But now, for some reason, it seemed even more real. He read her name at the top, even though he had memorized it long ago. Nim Hardix. Age fifteen. Funny how she had seemed so much older to him then, when he was thirteen. Now, with a start, he realized that they were the same age. Nim would be forever fifteen. She had died on the third day, her back driven through with a machete from the District Two boy.

He placed her picture back into the drawer and chose another one. A boy with wide brown eyes and shaggy black hair. Roy scanned the top of the paper, though he knew this face just as well as the last. "Mikey Thorne;12;District 7," it said. Mikey had been twelve years old. Roy moved his eyes down to read Mikey's quote and mouthed the words to himself.

"I'm not scared. I may be only twelve, but I'm gonna fight my hardest and hope my hardest, too."

It hadn't been enough. Roy let out a sigh. Poor little Mikey had died in the Bloodbath. Silly kid had sprinted to get a water bottle. A water bottle. Roy couldn't believe a little boy lost his life for a water bottle.

And now, here was another picture.

This one was even more detailed than the last two. This one was his most recent. It showed a girl with plain brown hair and plain brown eyes. Still, there was something about her that could draw anyone in. Maybe it was the focus in her eyes. She had a goal and she wasn't letting fear stand in her way of getting there. Or maybe it was the way she was frowning slightly, in an almost defiant way. Perhaps it was defiance! Roy wouldn't put it past her. Actually, he would not put anything past this girl.

She was a difficult one to figure out, that Katniss Everdeen.

He studied her picture a little while longer. Next to her name and age was a little crown, the symbol he drew on the victors' drawings. He couldn't figure out why the president had let two tributes win last year. That was beyond him. For a guy who loved strategy, Roy was thoroughly puzzled as to what the president's strategy might be. Why would he want to keep both of them alive? They were just two kids from Twelve. Roy would admit it, he was the type who stuck his nose up at the people from Twelve. They were nothing like the people from Three.

In Three, people were calm and level-headed. Over in the outer districts, the people were wild and rebellious. Roy had already heard talk of sparks lighting up, thanks to his skill in eavesdropping in on his grandfather's conversations. Sparks that, he well knew, were caused by that girl.

Over in those outer districts, like Ten, Eleven and Twelve, people had no technology whatsoever. It was like they were oblivious to the time around them. Roy pitied such people. His own mind was so geared towards technology that it was hard for him to imagine anything else.

Some might call him pompous, for looking down on these people the way he did. He did not mean to be pompous, of course. The arrogant never think that they are arrogant, after all. But he wasn't even that. Roy Peregrine was more naive than anything else. He just didn't know better.

He thought the way he did because he had been raised in on of the few elite homes in the district and, though he saw that Three was certainly not devoid of poverty, he could not imagine what life would be like if he lived in Twelve.

And why should he think about that?

He had better things to occupy his mind. Like the Games.

The bedroom door suddenly burst open and Roy jolted up in his chair. He grandmother walked into the room. Her eyes fell on the stack of papers and the picture in Roy's hands. He was still holding the one of the girl from Twelve. Other pictures of tributes from years past littered the desk and the floor nearby. Her eyes blinked slowly. They were a watery grey shade, clear and sharp.

She sighed softly and walked towards him, her long brown skit touching the floor. Roy felt her cold hand touch his shoulder. "Oh, Roy." She shook her head softly. "What am I going to do with you?"

Roy shrugged his bony shoulders. He hated when his grandmother gave him that sad look. He always had. After all, she had been his caregiver since he was too young to remember, after his parents had both been killed in the Hunger Games, fifteen years ago.

Ashella, his grandmother, seemed to know that he was thinking about them.

She sat down on the bed, which made a creaking sound. Roy imagined the old woman's joints creaking along with it. She sighed again and cleared her throat. "Roy dear, I know it's difficult. I can't imagine how hard it is to have lost your parents in such a violent way. Oh, I can try all I want to protect you from watching and thinking about the Games. But it's just not going to work. Whether or not I like it, you will always have a tie to the Games. But I never thought it would end up like this."

"Like what?!" Roy snapped. Though he knew perfectly well what she was referring to.

His grandmother only had to gesture to his desk, covered in maps and strategy diagrams of tributes in years past. "This is an obsession, Roy. Face it. The Games are all you can think about." Though she was old and her face was worn with wrinkles, Ashella's eyes never failed to have an intensity to them, just like his grandfather's.

He stared down at the linoleum floor. "Sorry if this makes you sad to see, grandma." His voice was apologetic, for he did not like to disappoint his grandmother, whom he was very close to. "I can't help being a little paranoid. You have to admit that my odds of being selected are greatly increased, since I had not only one, but two parents in the Games. It makes for good entertainment! Don't you see? The year they went in, oh, the Capital got their entertainment all right. One young man volunteering to protect his lover. Then them both dying at the hands of some brutish District Two boy!" His voice ended on a high, shrieking note.

Ashella walked slowly to where her grandson sat and put a hand on his shoulder. "I miss my daughter. I miss Alere just as much as you do. Even more so because I knew her. But something good did come out of something so awful. And that was you. Her little baby with those big owl eyes. You're everything to me and to your grandfather, too. And we don't want to see you like this."

Roy placed the maps and pictures back into the drawers. His eyes floated over all the notes he had jotted down on various strategies. He pulled his eyes away quickly, though.

A day like today did not need any more sadness to it.

"I want you to look presentable," his grandmother was saying. "Just in case those cameras should find you, and they likely will. People over in the Capital will likely want to know how you look now and all of that. I'm sure many of them still remember your parents."

"Not in the way I'd want them to be remembered," he mumbled to himself.

His grandmother, thank goodness, was losing her hearing. "How about this?" She pulled out a simple white button-down shirt and well-tailored black pants. The fact that his grandfather was a Peacekeeper, along with the fact that they were mildly famous in the Capital meant that they could afford such things.

"That's fine."

He threw on the clothes she had offered him, relishing in the feeling of the crisp fabric. Roy was the type of guy who liked to look presentable. He was likely going to see a lot of the girls from school at the Reaping. Well, none of them did really stand out to him. They were either from Three's much poorer side, or ugly or dumb or all three of those things.

His grandfather was in the apartment's airy kitchen, spooning oatmeal into bowls. He whistled while he worked. In general Roy's grandfather, Calob Paregrine, was a happy sort of man. Even as a Peacekeeper, which many people likely found surprising. But he was well-liked enough. The people of Three knew him as a just sort of Peacekeeper.

And so, though Peacekeepers could not possibly be liked by the people, Calob Peregrine did come pretty close. He had even allowed some people to escape punishment, if he felt they didn't deserve it.

"Take a seat," he said gruffly. "There's some brown sugar for your oatmeal on the table. Eat and quickly because you don't have much time."

"Where's Lyrana?" Roy asked with mild interest as he plopped down into the chair. Lyrana was the family's maid. She had been working for them since she was Roy's age. Roy had grown very close to her, as he sometimes felt removed from his grandparents because they were so much older than he was. She was very pretty and an excellent cook. When Roy was younger, he had thought he was in love with her. Now he knew better, but he did still have somewhat of a crush on her. She was just so much more mature than the other girls Roy's own age.

Maturity was very important to him.

But this was all silliness that he didn't want to think too much of. Roy played with his spoon, a plain wooden one. He knew that as soon as he would swallow the oatmeal, it would only seem to stick to his stomach and make his nerve-sick stomach even more queasy.

"Oh, Reaping Day's practically a holiday, I think," his grandfather said. "Your grandmother and I gave her the day off."

Roy nodded. That seemed fair. They had already established a reputation as being fair to their workers. This would only help that. Besides, he wouldn't want her to see him like this.

On Reaping Day, Roy's skin seemed to become a shade paler than its usual ghost white. His eyes were narrowed and glazed over. Anyone could see that his mind was clearly somewhere else. His hair went unbrushed and hung in wild, unkempt waves. And his fingers! They never stopped that strange fluttering they always did when he was truly afraid.

This was going to be a long day.

He felt the air shift slightly as his grandfather slowly lowered himself to the chair across from Roy. Calob grunted slightly and Roy was again reminded of the ages of these two. Some day soon, he was sure, he was going to be the one taking care or them.

And he did not mind this. They were family. Roy was, if anything, loyal. He was close to these grandparents of his, even though they could not compare to parents. They were close enough for him.

Besides. He had never known anything different.

He let his eyes drift around the room, in an attempt to calm himself down before the inevitable storm of emotions he was sure to encounter once those two kids' names were called. He blinked twice, hard. There was a window, letting in the morning sunlight. Outside of it there were window bowed full of petunias. His grandmother's work. The chairs and the table, as well as the floor were made of the same colorless linoleum type material. Wood was hard to come by in Three.

Still, the walls were painted a nice peach and there were little touches of home throughout the apartment. District Three apartments were known to be small, metallic and generally cold-looking. Not the Peregrines'.

This was his home. And it had been a satisfactory place to grow up in, he thought. Especially compared to where a lot of his peers were coming from.

The scraping of his grandfather's chair against the floor woke Roy from his little reverie. Calob put his hands on the table and stared at Roy with that authoritative expression that he was so prone to slipping into. "I know that today is a hard day for you," he said.

Roy nodded stiffly.

"Just hold your head up, boy. No matter what happens. You're a Peregrine, no matter how scared you might be feeling. Alere did just that until her dying breath. She did. And you? You've already been through so much. We know that you're a strong kid, Roy."

At this, Roy could not help but let out a little gulp.

To his surprise, his grandfather laughed and slammed the table, making the bowls jump up and make a clattering sound. "Believe it or not, there is bravery somewhere in those veins!"

Now he cracked a little smile. Just a small one, if only to see his grandfather laugh again.

At that moment, his grandmother came back into the room. She waved her hands at Roy. "What are you still doing here? Get a move on!"

Roy got up and silently pushed his chair back into the table. It made a creaking noise. When he looked down for a split second, he realized that his knuckles were white from gripping onto the chair. Was he really this frightened? Apparently so. He could feel moistness of sweat under his arms and on his brow. His stomach was coiled into knots already.

He walked to the door, feeling as thought his feet were made of lead. And, delicately as possible, he twisted the doorknob. As the door swung open and revealed the dimly-lit hallway outside the apartment, Roy threw a glance back at his grandparents, who were standing together right behind him.

"You go on now," said his grandmother. "You've got to go earlier than we do, to sign in and all of that. We'll catch up late." She waved her hands again.

"Okay then." Roy shuffled his feet. "Um, bye then."

His grandmother smiled. "Goodbye."

The door shut.

As Roy walked down the narrow hallway and to the stairwell, he felt like his heart had thudded to the bottom of his chest. Something just didn't seem right today. And it wasn't just because today was Reaping Day. No, Roy always felt strange then. His mind was already whirring, thinking of how he could apply some new drawing techniques he had picked up tonight when the tributes' faces would be on screen for the first time. A little blending using his finger would make them look even more realistic….

But his heart wasn't in it this time around. Yes, that was it.

He walked down the stairwell, his feet making thudding sounds. On each floor of the building, he could hear different families getting ready. Preparing themselves for the difficult time ahead.

A Quell was no easy thing to prepare for, either. It was made even more difficult because this Quell, Roy thought, was even crueler than the two Quells of the past. An entire family from each district! How many children would die? Little siblings and babies even? Older people, like his grandparents?

He shoved his hands in his pockets and tried not to think about it.

Roy Peregrine had never been very good at trying not to think about things. That was a fact.

He turned out of the stairwell at the bottom floor, not even winded from the long climb down. His body was pumping with fear and adrenaline. Oh, why did this year feel so different? He headed out the door and into the street. The streets normally seemed very wide, but today they were crowded.

It was easy to spot small children this year who usually were kept inside and shielded from the horror that was the Reaping. At first, Roy wasn't sure why this was. Then, of course, it hit him. These kids could be going to the Games.

That little girl with the faded blue dress. Or the little boy bouncing the rubber ball.

This was too horrible to think about.

Roy waled over to the tables and signed himself in, thrusting his hand forward so that the blood could be collected, so as to verify that he wasn't a runner. He cringed at the sight of the blood and hoped none of it would get on his white shirt. He had always hated the blood.

He took a moment to stare up at the sky and calm himself. It was a brilliant blue. Almost as though, on such a nice day, nothing could go wrong.

And so Roy slipped in the crowd of boys in the fifteen-her olds section.

Not a moment too soon to hear his name being called.

**The Goodbye Room**

Roy walked to the stage with his feet crunching the gravel. _Crunch._

He shuddered, but somehow managed to keep his head up. He focused his eyes on the escort's bright pink suit. It seemed to waver in front of him and he nearly lost his balance.

The whole crowd of people was staring at him. He could feel their eyes bearing into his back. It felt like something was burning into his skin. Roy pressed into his hands so hard with his nails that he could make out little crescents of blood forming. His breath came out in shallow gasps. It was so silent he could hear his heart beating.

_Thud. Thud._

The escort's eyes never left his figure. She tilted her head as he made his way up the narrow wooden steps to the stage. He grabbed the railing so hard that his hand began to hurt. But he had to hold onto something. Anything to keep him from slipping in shock. There were seven steps. Each one's creaking noise sounded loud as a gunshot in the utter silence that enveloped the Square.

_Creak._

He made it onto the stage, a roaring noise sounding in his ears. What was that? Panic. Sheer panic. Because it wasn't just him going in. No, he was not going to be alone. Roy felt his knees buckle under his weight as he realized with sheer terror that it was not just him he needed to panic for.

His family was going in with him.

Sure enough, the escort cleared her throat with a flutter. "Roy will now be escorted to the Justice Building," she said into the microphone. She did seem just a little flustered, as this was breaking the standard that had fallen into place after seventy-five years of Reapings. She shuffled in place slightly. "His family will be found and brought to him. All will depart to the Capital together."

At that, she gave a wave of her hand and two Peacekeepers came forward. Roy instinctively backed away, but his legs felt useless and numb. The Peacekeepers grabbed both of his arms stiffly. They stared straight ahead, refusing to make eye contact with him. One of them did look vaguely familiar, though.

Roy realized with a start that it was Maximus. Max was his grandfather's friend. He had been in their house several times. Had a drink at their table. Ate his grandmother's cooking and shared stories on the family's couch.

As Max and the other man led Roy to the Justice Building, he felt his heart sinking in his chest. Here was a man so dear to his family that Roy had even gone so far as to call him "Uncle Max." And now, that same man was leading his dear friend's grandson to his death. Without so much as a glance at the boy.

But why should he offer some sympathy? This was nothing new or appalling to anyone. There had been Reaping for as long as anyone had been alive here. It was an inevitable part of life. Perhaps Max had even seen it coming. Either way, Roy knew that the man would go home to his family and eat a good meal in celebration that no one in his family had been Reaped.

The small space that Roy had filled in his life, and in the lives of the other people he knew, would silently vanish. This was how it always was. And always had been. In past years, after the Games had begun, there was often an empty desk in Roy's class. The students walked around that desk. Only a few stopped to stare at it, knowing something was very off. The teacher ignored the desk for the most part, but every year he could see that teacher quietly pick the desk up and move it out of the room. Like it never had been there.

The students would whisper their classmate's name every now and then. And then the whispers would get quieter and fewer in number. Until the name had vanished from people's lips entirely.

So it went.

His head was pounding with all of these thought as the Peacekeepers led him into the huge, cold and forbidding Justice Building. The elevator they went into was so narrow that Roy felt his chest constricting. He shoved his hands into his pockets and balled them into tight fists.

Max and the other man led him into a room painted gray, with muted furniture and a large window overlooking the street.

This was the Goodbye room.

Thy left silently. Max, though, turned his head around to look at Roy. They made eye contact. Roy held his gaze steady and so did Max. Then, the man slowly shook his head. Out of sadness, regret or merely telling himself not to do anything at all, Roy wasn't sure.

Either way, Max pulled his gaze sharply away and walked out of the door.

Now, Roy was completely alone.

The room was large, but Roy felt as though the walls were slowly moving inward. Trapping him.

He gasped for air and gripped the sides of the chair he was sitting on. Sweat beads formed above his lip and his whole body ached from being tense and in shock for so long. There was a rushing in his ears, like a strong wind or the sea in motion. The rushing sound kept repeating his name. Just like the escort had read it.

He stared down at the ground. Scenes from past Games rushed through his head. Children being wrestled to the ground. Young boys and girls running as fast as their legs could carry them, but it never being enough. It was never enough. Careers with their cold eyes and expressionless glares, methodically murdering anyone who stood in their way. And blood. So, so much blood.

He was going to be part of that now. This was going to be his new reality.

The Games were no longer just going to be something on screen. Something that stayed far away and did not touch his little bubble, so lovingly constructed by his grandparents. The Games were no longer going to be just a vague term that dotted his grandparents' nighttime conversations, which he had eavesdropped on as a small child.

They were very, very real.

How was he possibly going to face that?

Well, there were many strategies to choose from. Perhaps those endless maps, diagrams and charts he had contracted were finally going to help him. Maybe he could put his paranoia to use somehow. If only to put off the inevitable.

He could lay low until the Games. Go around the Training Center picking useful, but simple stations and not make contact with anyone else. By doing this, he would not be making any enemies with anyone or sticking out in anyone's eye. Not catching the attention of others had been a strategy used by a few, like Kai Halcyon from Four during the seventy-third Games or Jetta Manon from Seven or Finch Adoms last year. It had worked well enough for a little while, yes. Only, none of them had survived. Then there was the strategy adopted by, say, Mira Lannis two years ago or Tad Alcins three Games past. That was to find as many allies as possible.

This way, he could be protected. But what of the families?

Everything was so twisted this year that it was going to be impossible to strategize.

He put his head in his arms and let out a long, heavy sigh. He was going to have to find a way to face the days to come. It was going to be his job to make sure that no harm would come to his grandparents. But Roy had never protected anyone before.

Not ever.

Roy had been the one being _protected. _

But it was clear that no one could shelter him from what was coming. This was his reality now and he was just going to have to face it. The same way his own mother did, fifteen years ago. He was a Peregrine, after all. Peregrines did not hide away all day, avoiding the light of day like he had been doing. Peregrines did not run like cowards, nor leave other unprotected.

He was his mother's child. And it was time he showed that.

At the moment he had reached this conclusion with himself, the door opened. He lifted his head to see two very familiar figures walk inside. His grandfather was holding his grandmother's arm. She was leaning heavily on him for support. Roy fleet his breath catch in his throat.

They walked toward him and his grandmother slowly sat on the couch next to him.

One slow tear made its way down her cheek, catching in the grooves and lines. Her eyes were already rimmed with red.

Roy drew a sharp breath in.

And then, he did something he had not done in years.

He drew his grandmother into an embrace.

**A/N Another thank you goes out to Roy's fantastic submitter, who took a lot of risks when she submitted his form. He was a great experience to write for.**

**What did you all think of the small Peregrine family? Let me know in your reviews.**

**Again, updates for this may be few and far between, but please know that I will never, ever abandon you guys. I have the most wonderful band of extremely loyal readers. You know who you are! You are the ones who review every chapter no matter what. When I see your review alerts, a smile lights up my face before I can even read what you have to say!**

**You submitted wonderful tributes who I will do my best to do justice for. **

**And that is my promise!**

**Peace, love, and best wishes to all you writers!**


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